Gendered Grammar Linked to Global Sexism

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Languages in which nouns are given male or female status are
linked to gender inequality, according to a new study that
compares languages and equality across the globe.

Surprisingly, though, languages with no gender at all — where
even "he" and "she" are represented by the same word — are
associated with the most gender
inequality, perhaps because people automatically categorize
gender-neutral references as male.

"These are aspects of language that seem very mundane and seem
like they wouldn't make a difference," said study researcher
Jennifer Prewitt-Freilino, a psychologist at the Rhode Island
School of Design. "But more and more research that is starting to
come out looking at
grammatical gender and language suggests that it has more of
an impact than you would think."

Language and attitudes

In other words, our thoughts don't just shape our language. Our
language may also shape our thoughts. For example, one 2009 study
asked high-school students to read a passage in
English, Spanish or French. English is a "natural gender"
language, meaning that speakers use gender-specific pronouns, but
nouns do not have gender. Spanish and French are "gendered"
languages, in which nouns are assigned as masculine and feminine.
In Spanish, for example "la fruita" (the fruit) is feminine, but
"el dia" (daytime) is masculine.

Compared with the students who read the passages in English,
those who read in gendered languages responded with
higher levels of sexism to a questionnaire they took after
the study.

Prewitt-Freilino and her colleagues wanted to take a broader
look. Using the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Index,
which measures inequality between men and women in economics,
education, politics and health, they compared nations' inequality
to the type of language most frequently spoken there. Of the 134
countries included in the index, 54.5 percent spoke predominately
gendered languages, 9 percent spoke natural gender languages and
19.4 percent spoke genderless languages. Genderless languages
include Finnish, which uses the same pronoun for males and
females. The remaining countries spoke some mixture of gendered,
natural gender and genderless languages. [ See
Country Gender-Equality Rankings ]

The researchers controlled for geographical location, religion,
political system and relative development in an attempt to
account for other factors influencing gender inequality.

Gender and equality

On average, countries where gendered languages are spoken ranked
lowest on the scale of gender equality, researchers reported in
the journal Sex Roles. But surprisingly, genderless languages
didn't fare as well as natural gender languages such as English
(though they did fare better than gendered languages).

Gender-neutral pronouns likely conjure male images,
Prewitt-Freilino said. Previous research has suggested that when
people are cued with the gender-neutral "they," they think of
male characters far more frequently than when cued with "he
or she."

"Being able to use gendered pronouns, things like 'he' or 'she,'
and being able to modify the language could actually have a
function," Prewitt-Freilino said. That result suggests that
efforts to invent gender-neutral pronouns in English could
backfire.

There is not a one-to-one correlation between language and
equality. Iran, for example, is a predominately Persian-speaking
country, and Persian is a
genderless language.

"There's a lot of variability between the countries, which is
also what makes it pretty surprising that we still found this
difference," Prewitt-Freilino said.

There are limitations to the study, including the fact that the
results don't indicate that language differences necessarily
cause the inequality. There are also relatively few natural
gender languages, Prewitt-Freilino said, making them harder to
compare.

Yemen scored lowest on gender equality scale, followed by Chad
and Pakistan. Citizens of all three predominately speak gendered
languages. Finland, which boasts a genderless language, and
Iceland, which boasts a natural gender language, tied for most
gender-equal country, with Norway, another natural gender
language country, coming in third.